Episode 128: The Power of People-First Leadership: Lessons from the Navy to API Group

Welcome to the Building Great Leaders podcast. I'm your host, Laura Seitz. My guest today is API Group's Director of Inspections Enablement, Sam Smith. I got to meet Sam when he was first being introduced to our organization, and I've got to observe his leadership journey, at least at API Group.

So I'm interested in learning more about what he learned before he got here. Let's dive in. You're listening to the Building Great Leaders podcast by API Group. API Group is a market-leading business services provider of safety and specialty services.

We have a winning leadership culture driven by entrepreneurial business leaders to deliver innovative solutions for our customers. This podcast supports our enduring purpose of building great leaders, and we hope you are inspired to take action after listening. Welcome, Sam. Thank you.

Thanks for having me. I'm excited. Full disclosure, we actually got to run a little bit this morning, and I'm feeling pretty good right now. How are you feeling?

Way better. That's always a good way to start the day, a little graveyard run around the Delta Hotel. Thankfully, we're both here pretty often, so we get to do it all the time. I know.

And today it was, like, warm, so I felt good about that. Sometimes we've done it when it's been dark and freezing cold. Dark, freezing. We get lost.

We end up running on the side of the road instead of on the actual trail. So this morning was a lot better. We could see where we were going. A hundred percent.

Let's dive into your background, though. So tell listeners a little bit about yourself. Yeah, absolutely. So I was originally born and raised in Omaha, Nebraska, and split time between Omaha and Lincoln.

Grew up there my entire childhood. And then when I was 18, I was looking at what to do to school and found this at a great guidance counselor. I was like, you should join the Navy. Maybe thought about the Naval Academy.

Went home and told my mom. She was like, absolutely not. So went and did the summer program and was fortunate to get accepted there. And that kind of got me into the Navy life and time on submarines.

and spent about eight and a half, nine years doing that. And then met you and interviewed and was fortunate to get picked for API Group and have been here ever since. And then for a personal side of things, I've been married to my wife, Rachel, 13 years now. We've been together for 18.

We got together in high school and kind of stuck it out through. Married at 22, which is crazy to think about now. And so we live in Northwest Arkansas in a town called Bella Vista with our two dogs, Riley, he's our old man, 13-year-old golden retriever. And then Frank, who's our Australian shepherd, who's just a psychopath, even at six years old.

For fun, I like to golf. I'd spend way too much time and energy working on my house. So Rachel and I fully got in and renovated our house. So we just finished that up.

So no more projects for this year. And then, you know, try to get out and get active, like running this morning as much as possible. Yeah, I love that. I'm going to back up a little bit.

But how does a landlocked kid in Omaha, Nebraska, there's not a lot of water near Omaha, right? Zero water. You know, it's the only double landlocked state. So there's two states between Nebraska and any other body of water, like large ocean.

It's the only state that is like that. About as far away from water as you can get. Yeah. So how did you end up in the Navy?

I mean, other than the guidance counselor, like what drew you, especially when your mom was like, no. So I had a guidance counselor that told me the summer program. So I was looking at ROTC. I actually, just funny because I ended up teaching and being an ROTC instructor at Iowa State, but I was actually accepted to go to ROTC.

That was going to be my path. And then the academy was an option, which people would laugh at now, was like, I wanted to be a Marine. Marine Corps, that was really motivated, thought I wanted to do it, spent about six months at the academy. I was like, that is not the job for me.

So if you know me, it's a good fit. I ended up in the right role. that's funny and you ended up on a submarine yeah eventually right I actually early selected submarines so it was pretty quick once I got to the academy it's like yeah I'm definitely not built for marines I don't have the hoo-yah mindset that's not me you know 6 a.m graveyard runs but no 6 a.

m ruck marches or anything like that for me and then you know not a great flyer I don't mind flying but I would never want to be in a jet or anything so I kind of narrowed it down and submarines is really technical everyone has to volunteer you have to pass a lot of interviews to get selected for it. So that was kind of my calling. What experiences during that time really shaped you and what, I guess, life lessons did you learn from your military service that you've been able to apply at API?

Yeah, I think that's a great question because I think what aligns with the Navy, what I learned to come into API is it's really all about the people. There's a lot of tough deployments, long weekends, long days, a lot of time on the submarine and a lot of those really stressful situations, more stressful situations that I've ever been in, it was able to get through that because the people were great. Everyone was motivated. Everyone wanted to be there.

Everyone wanted to work to the common solution. So the people were awesome. And so I think that's really kind of transfers over to API that invests in all the people. And if you're on a team of great people, then it doesn't matter what you're kind of overcoming.

If you have a bad day, everyone's kind of there and rallying around you. And then my second kind of builds off of the people is like you have to invest in people. You can't just have good people. You have to actually spend the time and training and investing in them.

So I'm a quick learner. So when I showed up to the boat, I qualified in about a year or so minutes. I could stand all the watches, do everything and kind of could do cover down. And then, so I got promoted to one of the senior division officer roles pretty quick, faster than most people should.

And that was because we had this senior chief who'd been in the Navy longer than I had been alive. He was just, he knew everything. He was awesome. And then we're getting ready for my first patrol in this new role and he gets medically disqualified from the Navy.

Can't go on our deployment, can't do anything. We get a new chief from another boat three weeks before we're about to go underway and we go in and we do our evaluation which I not really a part of I just there to observe It my first patrol and it the chief and all of our young sailors doing this evaluation in front of these other senior master chiefs basically saying like yep you can go and do your mission And we made it about 20 minutes into that fail. This completely failed.

And what I've come to find out is that senior chief was awesome. He knew everything about the radio room. He could do everything. But instead of training the sailors into the why and explaining what they had to do, it was more like, this is happening, click that button or go switch this or do this.

so we never really explained the why never had a training program none of them were qualified for the senior watches so for us it'd be like having a superintendent that didn't train any of the apprentices or journeymen you know on a job site and then that superintendent gets pulled out and the job site just kind of goes to hell yeah that was a good learning experience so really rebuilding the training program investing in the people getting them qualified you know we had one radio supervisor when i started to four when i left we went from failing to above average so you know just kind of seeing the two-year journey of what investing in people looks like really called to me.

So I remember we had our interview, you sent over some articles, and one of them was a 2011 article about Russ that was about, you know, it's a downturn, but you still believe in investing in people and we're never going to give that up. And here's like the results prove it. So I remember that really resonating after coming off of that journey. So that really sold me on API Group.

Yeah, and we found each other through a partnership with Alliance. I'm just kind of curious like go back to that because that was like my first set of interviews um so I'm like what do you remember from back then like what was your first impression I mean obviously the article helped right kind of form that first impression but I'm curious what your first impression was when you walk into that building here at headquarters yeah that was that was a crazy day well first off with the alliance thing it was speed dating so I remember having to like put up a sheet in my basement in the corner and get set up in a suit and sit down there for like nine interviews over a couple of days.

That was like early Zoom days with COVID, like coming out of COVID. So that was interesting, not being able to like meet anyone face to face. But then I just remember like you really selling the message of the LDP program is an opportunity and we're going to invest in you and the growth. So that really sold it to me.

And then coming up, I don't remember who exactly we had lunch with, but we had lunch that day with some other LDPs that have been through the program. We went over to Viking. And then, of course, the fun end of the day of going to sit in the corner in the conference room across from Russ. And I don't remember what I got asked or what I answered, but, you know, it worked out and I'm glad it did.

Yeah, it is. I mean, describing it as speed dating is accurate. I just, I mean, you've been in the other side of the interviews with me in the past as well, where I'll be messaging you on the side being like, did we say this already? Speed dating and Groundhog Day mix.

is like, do we say this? It's like, it's bad. But yeah, I know. I was like, oh my gosh, did I say this in the last interview?

Yeah, exactly. If there's somebody out there right now that happens to stumble along this podcast that is maybe finishing up their military career, what advice do you have for them for the transition? Or what do you wish you had known from that transition to the corporate world or business. Yeah, I think I was fortunate because I went and did that short duty at Iowa State.

So I had kind of a couple of years, like I got my master's degree. I got to learn a little bit more about the business side of things and see some of my earlier friends transition into civilian careers. And then I saw a lot of people, they would trace the title or the money or the business that they wanted to be at. And I worked at this company and that had a lot of clout.

And then six months later, they were transitioning or changing because it's like your number, they don't care about you. They're not investing in you. You're just, you know, one of 40,000 employees, not teammates. And six months later, they're looking for stuff.

So if I was, you know, I think I did it right where I was prioritized. And that's what really spoke to me about the LDP is the opportunity to, again, learn about the business and then also find the role that makes sense for me. So I would tell people to take time, enjoy it. Military life is hard.

So take some time off and really kind of reset and then find a role that really speaks to you, that's going to invest in you, that you have some mentors and there's kind of a progression, not so much in your career, but more about you as a person. I think so many people focus on the dollar figure of the title, and then it goes down the drain six months later and they refine their passion at that point. Totally. And I mean, the LDP program, so it's leadership development program, it does offer a lot of opportunity.

It does come at a cost though, like it's a grind. so do you remember that point where you're like oh my gosh I'm so sick of living out of hotel rooms I do actually it's funny you ask that because it was right after Christmas so I took a week off for Christmas and I was a Viking at the time and it was great I was I think six or seven months into it at that point and then I come back knowing I still have three companies I'm ready I just I'll make the decision let me get started now it's just I have to go back to another hotel room Yeah.

No, thank you. Yeah. I usually tell people it's usually by the fifth or sixth rotation where you're like, I'm done. But if you stick it out, it's worth it.

Oh, it's absolutely worth it. And it's good to, I think Russ said it well. It's like, you're going to get some good and you're going to get some bad, but they're both really helpful to make the decision. I think that really helped open my eyes.

Like, what did I want to do? What did I not want to do? Just to kind of get settled into the role and make a good decision at the end. Yeah.

And you ended up at? Yeah. I didn't actually rotate through NSG, but I ended up at API National Service Group running the Walmart account for them. So that's actually why I moved down to Bentonville, Arkansas.

My first role was going into their office every day and managing that national account, which was a great role. I took it because it was a great impact. I got a day one, work with all of our businesses on something that was really impactful. I mean I still I went to an ex meeting the other day and I walked up to one of the Grunot branches and I was introducing myself like Walmart guy It been three years Come on guys That's funny.

But a great way to maximize those relationships that you'd built on rotation too. Yeah, I mean, it was great to, you know, work with people that I had rotated with and then meet a ton of new people. So that's actually, I think, where I kind of got started in this role. So I remember I would call Brian Brogard.

No idea. He was Courtney's husband at the time, service manager at Western States. And he would call because we had all these kind of issues, these big blowouts and underground work and all this stuff. So we would call and we'd get to talking and be like 30 seconds of work.

And then I'd be on the phone for 25 minutes. I'm in this box at the Walmart office. I don't want to get out of here. Like, you want to keep talking to me?

So I actually got to meet Brian more before I got to meet Courtney. So I got to meet a ton of people. I loved it. That's awesome.

And then from NSG, you take over your current role. Do you want to talk a little bit about that? Yeah, absolutely. So it was an interesting time with the Walmart account because they were going through a lot of transition.

I'm sure a lot of people can relate to this. We ended up, you know, through negotiations saying, nope, this doesn't make sense for API group and kind of walked away from that. So I was kind of a long transition away from Walmart. And then for me, it was, OK, Rachel, we're getting out of the Navy.

So we don't want to move. We don't want to do deployments. but I'm going to take this year long traveling role. And then we're going to move down to Bentonville.

And then it was, okay, this Walmart thing is going away. So it was, what's next? We can't move because Rachel would kill me at that point. We had, we'd been there eight months.

So we needed to figure out what we wanted to do. And I remember talking to you and talking to Lauren and Cutter and just saying, what is the opportunity? And then I was actually standing at a, I remember because I was sitting in the Washington state with some Navy friends. We were going for a weekend up there.

I was sitting on the balcony. It was eight in the morning and Courtney called and she was like, you know, you want this opportunity. I don't know exactly what it looks like, but this IMA and SISL program is getting huge and I just need help. And so I started on the SISL team actually almost three years ago to this month.

You have to define SISL, explain that, and then the IMA as well. And then talk a little bit about day in the life right now. But yeah, for folks who don't know, they should know what a SISL is and they should know what an IMA is, but just in case. Yeah, absolutely.

Well, this is why we have an acronym sheet in the IMA playbook, because it's like learning a whole new jargon when you start in the IMA program. So I'll start with the IMA. So an IMA is inspection managed account. It is really an inspection sales leader that drives our inspection first business.

So they are out bringing in new relationships, new customers and inspections that kind of drive our flywheel into service and the contract work later on. And then the sizzles are the corporate inspection sales leaders. So they are hiring, training, developing the IMAs across our different operating companies. So operating companies have one or two, depending on the size across North America right now and continuing to look and expand everywhere.

So your role has evolved. First, it was like special projects with the sizzles and IMAs. What does a day in the life look like currently? Yeah.

So, I mean, at first it was the, we need tracking. We don't know how many IMAs we have. We don't have a playbook. We don't have a team's page.

We don't have any of these reporting tools. How do we make it better and make it more scalable? It was crazy to see the growth. And we've kind of got those systems in place.

We have our trainings, we have everything kind of, the system is working. And so now my role is kind of still supporting the Sizzle and the IMA and the sales and the training and the development, the tracking there. But we're also expanding to a little bit more of the operational side with we've actually started the inspection prototype with a few pilot branches so excited to get that going and started and not ready to share everything with everyone but the first few branches have gone wonderfully and I think the opportunity there is huge and then I'm also supporting a lot on the the X-Cal and the newer systems for what does that mean for inspection and service kind of going forward so the day in the life for me really depends I could be on the road up here doing an onboarding and a refresher you know once a week For a month, 10 months out of the year, we could be visiting a pilot prototype branch.

You know, it just, it really depends. And that's kind of what I like about the role is like, again, get a, and be involved with all of our operating company and all of our team, and then also get to work on different facets of the business, which is entertaining. And inspections is such a big focus that it's great. I love it.

On that note, how can all of our teammates, regardless of their role, support our goals of that 10, 16, 60? and maybe you want to speak more specifically to the 60 because that's kind of your wheelhouse, but I'm just kind of curious. What do you think people could do? Yeah, well, I think you can't really get the 60 without the 10 and the 16.

I think it all just plays together. It's just a flywheel working. So I think starting with the IMAs, it's pretty obvious that they are the ones bringing in that new inspection work. But then I think it's the rest of the teammates, you know, it's our inspectors that have to go out and perform the work and have great customer service to make sure our customers have a great experience with those inspections.

and then they're going to want to get their deficiencies fixed. That's our service teammates making sure that we get those deficiencies turned around fast. And then the administrative team making sure we're scheduling and invoicing and getting the reports out. And then the leaders making sure that we're putting tools and processes in place to make sure we can support that.

And then we get this question a lot of, does that mean we're not going to do contract work? Or is this we're only, it's like, no, it's 60% because we want to do the right contracts. So then it's our, you know, our contract teams being able to choose the right kind of work that they want to do with the right customers. Yeah.

I think everyone plays a role, but it's, you know, about having the focus and the diligence and then the leaders to put the processes in place to support. That's awesome. On the hobby side. So you just finished a big bike race.

Was it last weekend? A couple weeks ago. Yeah. So not, yeah, not this past weekend, but the weekend before.

Yep. A, how did that go? It was, well, it was great. So we were really between the 55 and the 65 miler and we decided to do the 65 miler Looking back we should have done the 55 So like 90 of the elevation all of the hills and none of the aid stations were in that 10 mile section So we came out of that 10 mile section, no water, no food, just dead.

So I was like, we're going to do it again next year, but we're going to do a 55 because it's way more enjoyable. But it was great. It was a good first experience doing the longer bike ride. So it was, again, a Navy buddy and then Rachel.

So the three of us did it. And then my parents did the 30 miler. That's amazing. Yeah.

I'm just kind of curious. We had this discussion recently. Shout out to Bill Ball, Todd Kirby, Heather Sulfer. We did a 15 mile race the same week and you were doing your bike race.

And we started talking about the reasons why we run. I know you're a runner as well and you're doing these bike races. Why? What's the reason?

What draws you to it? Yeah, well, first off, I would say Rachel's a runner. I am a, you know, I do something. I don't know if I ever quite run, so I'm working on it.

So I've always struggled with, you know, like being healthy and weight and diet and working out and finding that balance. So for me, it's just a lifestyle shift of getting into the mindset of enjoying it. I don't think it needs to be running. If you don't like running, like I'm not a huge runner.

I know we're doing the Ragnar later in the year, so I need to start trail running. But there's so many other things to do. Like if you like, I started out on the elliptical before I ran because that's a good way to get started. I've transitioned to the bike which is so much better on your body and less beat up and you get to see a lot of places so you know road biking or gravel biking I'd recommend people get started in or I'm a recent convert to swimming so I've really gotten all in on swimming so I'd swim a couple times a week and it's just it's so relaxing and the first time I went swimming probably two and a half years ago at this point I could swim four lengths to the pool and then I had to take a five minute break so I was like I'm dead I don't know what I'm doing now Rachel and I will go swim for an hour or so at a time.

So I would just say start somewhere and then have a friend or a goal to do. And it doesn't matter. Like Rachel and I will go out and do a race and she'll be done 20 minutes ahead of me and I just come shuffling in. So I would say nobody at that race cares about your time besides you.

Yeah, I would 100% agree with that. And it's funny because I was joking with my husband the other day. I'm like, my social life now is just going up for runs with people. Oh yeah.

Well, see, our thing is we bike and ride, but it's like, where are we going to eat afterwards? Yeah. What's next? Like, let's bike to a...

Bike to a restaurant. Yeah. Yeah. We started and ended at a pizza place the other day.

Highly recommend that. That's a good way to do it. Yeah. I love that.

I love that. That's funny. Anything else that you want listeners to hear before we jump into the speed round? No, I don't think so.

You know, there's nothing major that I want to share. It's just, it's fun to catch up with you and it's fun to be able to do this. I never thought I'd be doing a podcast, but here I am. You know, I was emceeing the IMA Summit a month ago.

And like you told, you know, five years ago me that you'd be doing something like that. It'd be like, absolutely not. If you're living in Arkansas, absolutely not. If you're doing a podcast, absolutely not.

So I would say keep the doors open and just keep your head down and work hard and stuff works out well, especially, you know, at API Group, which is awesome. Yeah. So I have a follow-up question to that. Oh, I got more work by Sam Marazzi how it is.

You did. But well, no, just because I think it's interesting. Getting pushed out of your comfort zone, I think is good. And I think sometimes you tap into something that you're like, I'm using a skill set that I didn't realize I had or wasn't using.

Are you finding that the potential is being tapped? Yeah, I couldn't agree more. Like if you looked at my disc and my EQI and everything, I'm a super high C, I'm a super high introvert. you'd never think could be in front of rooms talking or doing something like this.

But almost every single role that I've taken from the submarine to teaching classes at Iowa State to rotating and LDP doesn't work if you're not comfortable, like walking into a branch and like, hey, I'm Sam, you're to help. Like, what can I do? I just want to learn to be in front of a room of 200 people. So I think every role that I've kind of taken is pushed me out of that comfort zone towards something else, which is, I think, a good place to be.

And it's made me a better person because it's built the areas that I was really weak at or maybe not comfortable with. but still I can lean into my strengths when I need to. Okay. Thanks for sharing that extra.

I still remember the first time I met Courtney at a function here and she's like, so this IMA thing, I was like, heck no, never doing sales. I'm open to anything else. I'm here for the LDP, but never sales. You know, here I am.

Does she throw that back at you every once in a while? Every time. Yeah. who would you challenge at api group to a dance-off gary johnson favorite sports team green bay packers what's one item on your bucket list i want to ride the tour de france route favorite color blue what is your favorite family tradition i would say lake trips to wisconsin what's one word your friends would use to describe you Ah, ridiculous.

I want to thank Sam for his time today. I really loved what he had to say about both the Navy and API group being people-focused and how he realized early on the importance of investing in your teammates and making sure that you're sharing knowledge. So that is my challenge for you all today. What are you doing to invest in someone else?

Until next time, remember everyone everywhere is a leader.